Page 9 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

King Take’s eyes bugged as my order was obeyed.

Three kings were already shackled and stitched, and in short order, shackles also snapped shut around King Change’s ankles. When I looked at King See, who stood so silently and submissively in his place, his shackles snapped shut too.

At last.

King See avoided my gaze, and for myself, I was relieved that my expectation of feeling very little at the sight of him had proved true. I felt almost nothing. Curiosity, perhaps.

He presented no challenge, whether to my heart or to my rule.

King See was but an annoyance of my past, and I felt such distance and growth from the version of me that he had hurt so well.

He would never hurt me again.

And I would spare him no further thought. Obsession deserved full focus. I released two stitches to bind the shackles of See and Change forevermore.

The mouths of King Take and Raise moved, but I paid their words no mind as I floated a circle between the perimeter of kings and the center of my conservatory. I circled the center. And circled some more.

The wind whipped at my tunic and hair, dislodging the last grains of sand. My power howled and shrieked, and my queendom answered with a warping and a squeeze. The world shook, and a distant rumble of monstrous proportions swelled and grated over the terrified shouts of kings.

A rock slid up through my conservatory floor. The rock had once been green, a pulsing green—so referenced in the original poem of kings. As human soldiers, kings had set their left hands to this olden rock only to enter centuries of warping at the hands of ancients.

From where they were shackled, five kings strained to put distance between themselves and the rock, though it no longer pulsed green. King Take shouted for freedom, while King See merely turned his cheek.

I could almost hear the amended chant of fifty mothers.

Up and out

Wove golden fate

Feeling ancient in gifted wisdom.

Five powers grasped

All icy demise

While free from her olden prison.

Grasped. Past tense. Five powers were shackled in my prison, and my prison had been made olden by the very rock that made them kings.

A reversal and a full circle.

There was another detail in the chant to concern myself with before a queen could shift the focus of her mind.

I gathered my power, but paused before letting it explode downward. I should not forget that monsters were the making of me. All monsters. I had greeted pawns, princesses, and simple monsters. I would show the same courtesy to kings.

I said, “My kingly obsession is complete. I am returned to save the world, if saved it can be. I am gladdened to see you all free of plague.”

There was a silence where kings worked to understand my meaning, and I allowed them the time. King See’s gaze drilled into my cheek, and I banished the sensation. He could drill however much he liked.

“And, uh, how exactly do we fit into the saving of the world?” asked King Take.

I had asked them for guidance before, and they had granted it for the price of my power. A tiny amount, but power, nevertheless.

Five kings could advise me, but they could not always and often do so. I must rely on my own connection first and foremost, and for great matters, there was the haze.

For dire need, five kings were shackled to my queendom for a reason.

“ You exist to respond to my order ,” I replied on the air.

King Raise yelped as my voice rustled his crisp suit.

“The purpose that kings hold for a queen will unfold.” And if it did not, then I would seek the answer.

King Raise cleared his throat. “And might we be released one night soon?”

I did not answer, and instead pulled five keys up through my queendom and into my hands. Then, I shoved the wall of my power downward to shoot myself high into the sky.

By directing my power this way and that, flying was no difficult matter.

I flew over Vitale, ignoring the sight and sounds of it.

I ignored the humming of the filters cleaning the air, too, and also the misters beyond the walls of the city, who attempted to stick sand to the ground.

Such futile measures taken by humans to cling to their existence. There was surely a better way.

A monstrous way .

I descended into a cold valley, and though I was greater in every possible way since the haze, there was an undeniable agelessness about this place, so surrounded as it was by towering dunes.

I entered the cave that kings had entered so long ago, and I continued down the tunnel they had once walked. The walls were smoothed in places by their frequent passage, and that was not the only mark kings had made here.

The way forward was soon blocked by a thick stone door woven with the power of five kings. Five keyholes were set in the stone slab, revealing what a queen must do to enter.

I had already relocated the olden rock from beyond this door to my conservatory. But then what was the point of winning five keys from kings?

I was meant to see what existed beyond this door. That was the ancient answer.

First I slotted the simple brass key that had belonged to King Bring into the matching keyhole in the wall. Twist. Click.

The bone key of King Take was next. Twist. Click.

The stone key of King Raise, that his princess had safeguarded and relinquished. Twist. Click.

The gnarled and knotted wood key of King Change. Twist. Click.

Finally, a black key gothic in its intricate cobweb design. The key of King See. I twisted the key, and the thud of my heart reminded me of my tie to the previous owner before a merciful fifth click rang out.

I dragged in an inhale, then promptly banished thoughts of sounds and clicks to where they belonged. Not in my mind.

The door cracked open with a great pour and smatter of sand and dust. I exhaled a strong breeze to clear the piles of sand away, and then pressed my fingertips against either side of the crack to gently push.

The thick stone slabs embedded with so much power crashed back against the walls of the cave .

My, the mythical cave was not large. To think that five men once stooped in here over a green rock was almost amusing, and I would feel that way if not for the foolishness of laughing at ancients.

The hole in the middle of the cave yawned in plain sight. That was where the olden rock had been.

I was not filled with confidence at approaching the edge, but I did what must be done.

Bravely—moronically—I peered into the hole left behind by an olden rock capable of warping kings. I peered down and down and forever into the hole.

The walls of the endless tunnel were sand and lifeless dirt, pale brown and useless to support life. Where I would expect to see layers of minerals deeper in the Earth, I saw none. More lifeless dirt. More sand. As far as my immortal and powerful eyes could see.

There was nothing else to this tunnel—except that it was not endless as initially thought. The hole extended to the core of the world, as far as I could tell. I would have expected to see a molten core, but yellows, oranges, and reds did not burn and smolder at the world’s center.

So I listened next, and there was the faintest flip-flop at the distant, distant bottom, as though a dying fish flapped pathetically.

My ears could tell me no more.

I sniffed the air. Death.

I tasted rot on my tongue, and my skin burned as if acidic smoke drifted up from the hole.

This hole was a gaping wound. An ulcer. This was my glimpse of the sickness and ruin of the world.

This was a view of how much I had to fix.

The sand at my feet leaped in answer to a pained groan from the world’s core. Sand started to trickle into the hole, and the sand did not stop. More and more arrived to trickle and fall to the center of the world.

Ah.

Here was the reason for winning five keys to open this door.

“I have released The Real End,” I whispered. “The olden rock was the stopper, and a queen has uncorked all the ruin and sickness you held inside until she was ready to reckon.”

Eventually, sand would fill this hole.

And ancients had gifted me an hourglass fit for a queen.